Earlier this week, a presenter shared the book “Object of Surveillance,” which documents the extended monitoring of Academician Sakharov by the KGB with comments, photographs, and accompanying articles. The event took place at the Gulag History Museum, and the presenter took the opportunity to explore the exhibition beforehand. The museum, founded in 2001, has hosted numerous publications, yet this visit marked a personal exploration beyond prior knowledge of the Gulag, memoirs, and related research.
Stepping up to 1st Samotechny Lane revealed a surprising urban surprise: a refined complex framed by a gate and a courtyard nestled among standard Moscow structures. The four-story red-brick building sits on a generous plot, with a dignified entrance and top-tier materials. It is not a private garage or a contemporary gallery; it is a Moscow municipal museum. In 2011, the city real estate department, under Moscow government orders, allocated the former dormitory of the old metro building for the Gulag Museum. Initially, the plan was a budget-conscious repair of the 1906 structure. Yet Sergei Kapkov, then head of cultural affairs, and Roman Romanov, the museum’s director, chose a bolder path. The reconstruction, led by the KONTORA office with architects Igor Aparin and Dmitry Baryudin, embraced a striking “hard style” that transformed the space without alarming the budget. Oxidized copper sheets clad the three facades, yielding a color that ages in place, and the natural aging process is palpable in texture and tone. The facade carries a quiet, solemn vitality that makes the building feel both alive and contemplative. Inside, the interior was carved into a compact space where brick walls, metal channels, and clean lines of stairs maintained a rigorous geometry, while light streamed in from the walls, evoking the glow of torches.
In 2015, the museum opened with doors drawn from actual camps, colonies, prisons, and transfer points. These doors, with authentic textures of iron, wood, and plywood, and their worn, camp-like surfaces, created a labyrinthine entrance that felt like a courtyard of a penal world. They served as the foundational objects of the exhibition.
By 2018, the exhibit expanded to include new artifacts. The scarcity of objects from Gulag camps posed challenges, especially as many documents had been destroyed or hidden. Museum staff intensified their search for genuine items and evidence. Modern technologies were employed, including video and audio installations, interactive maps, diagrams, and VR experiences. Everyday items such as children’s socks, spoons fashioned from tin cans, letters, postcards, theater programs from camp performances, and remnants like worker gloves were curated to illuminate daily life under the regime. The display acknowledges the memory of the 700,000 people executed, with the floor deliberately scattered with empty cartridge casings to reinforce the scale of the atrocity.
The exhibition also integrated theatrical elements. Sixteen exclusive stories are showcased in display cases, each accompanied by artifacts about their protagonists. In the headphones, visitors can hear voices of former prisoners, narrated by actors including Yevgeny Mironov, Maxim Vitorgan, Liya Akhedzhakova, and Chulpan Khamatova. One resonant story was heard, and a window inscription reading “Alexandra Tolstaya” drew attention.
During the First World War, a notable figure connected to Tolstoy’s circle served as an executioner and led a Red Cross detachment; this individual held a high rank and earned several honors. In December 1917, his return to Moscow seemed prudent as the new era unfolded. He resided at Yasnaya Polyana, tended to family archives, and was later named guardian of property there. His arrest in 1919 led to charges of counter-revolutionary activity and a sentence to three years in the first Soviet concentration camp established on the Moscow Novospassky Monastery grounds. A court asked whether he understood his punishment. He responded with a paradoxical acceptance, stating that the samovar deserved attention as much as anything else. Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya is remembered for hosting the Tolstoy Society at her apartment, where visitors gathered, and some remarked that her meetings concealed subtler activities. A poet once recited a verse about stifling civic fire in a country with a brave girl who faced punishment in a tight dungeon to build a samovar.
In the prison cell, diaries and letters to Lenin were preserved by placing notebooks behind a chipped stove tile, awaiting discovery. A letter written in those times began with a plea to his father for political openness and a reluctance to oppose the Soviet government, coupled with a request to be sent abroad if harm might arise to Russia. It also carried a stark statement about the life of a person marked as harmful, one that could not be tolerated even if the alternative involved exile. The correspondent described inviting those at his apartment to feel at ease, while also recounting underground activities through a witty poem.
Ultimately, the Tolstoy family faced adversity, and Alexandra Tolstaya was released after a period of imprisonment. Efforts to create a museum and a school for peasant children followed, but a push for anti-religious propaganda by teachers halted that project. In 1929, Tolstaya chose to lecture in Japan and did not return home, bidding Yasnaya Polyana farewell at night and recognizing the impossibility of ever revisiting that childhood place.
The current director of the Gulag Museum is a trained psychologist who believes in discussing collective and family traumas publicly. He argues that memories should be brought into communal and personal awareness rather than left buried in the subconscious, using contemporary tools to illuminate the past.
With its multimedia approach, the museum can provoke a sense of bewilderment yet also deepen understanding. The heavy truths of humiliation, endurance, and the vast scale of terror demand a strong presentation that can sustain memory. The goal is not merely to convey information but to evoke empathy and to keep the memory of victims and witnesses alive, preventing history from becoming a distant myth. The museum uses visual storytelling and performance elements to preserve not only knowledge but also a genuine human response to a national tragedy.
Today, the space breathes with younger staff and visitors, creating an atmosphere that feels fresh yet respectful. The Gulag History Museum operates as a complete ecosystem—offering lectures, conversations, tours, exhibitions, ongoing research, and new discoveries that attract artists, theater directors, writers, journalists, and historians. It stands as a dynamic memory site with a mission to preserve and illuminate the past. Those who have not visited might consider a visit to experience this multifaceted cultural space.
The narrative remains grounded in documented histories and evolving interpretation to reflect ongoing scholarship and collective memory.